RMS enforcement boss pledges COR action

Date: 15.06.2012

The NSW trucking crackdown aims to change behaviour in the industry and it will not stop until that happens, the man spearheading the Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) response tells ATN.
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RMS General Manager Compliance and Enforcement Paul Endycott − who, with the Highway Patrol and Traffic Command Operations Manager, Inspector Phil Brooks, heads the joint RMS-Police taskforce that is driving the initiative − also confirms that chain of responsibility investigations will go beyond trucking firms and their employees.

The NSW trucking crackdown aims to change behaviour in the industry and it will not stop until that happens, the man spearheading the Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) response tells ATN.

RMS General Manager Compliance and Enforcement Paul Endycott - who, with NSW Police Inspector Phil Brooks, heads the joint RMS-Police taskforce that is driving the initiative - also confirms that chain of responsibility investigations will go beyond trucking firms and their employees.

"This is about driving out the culture of the need to speed," the former police detective, who stresses the life-saving nature of the challenge, says.

Endycott (pictured) echoes a message from South Australia Police that truck drivers and transport firms can stand up to unfair customer demands and be supported by the authorities.

"I’m really interested in these unfair commercial advantages that are being created by the off-road parties’ demands on some of these smaller guys, who, I suppose, are the victims in this as well," he says.

On the criticism often levelled that chain of responsibility law has been slow to move beyond transport firms, Endycott says putting together cases against "big names in business in Australia" demands a high level of care and that this takes time.

"I’ve got to get it right," he says.

He also points out that there are chain of responsibility cases before the Supreme Court of NSW that involve consignors.

With all this in mind, there will be no apology for the way the crackdown has been and will continue to be conducted.

The latest action, hinted at recently by Roads Minister Duncan Gay, was Operation Octagon, which netted six trucking firms.

Compared with earlier operations, which affected some quite big companies, Octagon’s tally was in a smaller bracket and some were not pure transport firms.

"Their prominence demanded we do something about it," Endycott says of one of them, a spring water transport company.

Its history of speeding and fines paid through the State Debt Recovery Office had brought them to the taskforce’s attention.

During the operation, about four of the 34 targeted vehicles were non-speed limiter compliant and about the same percentage of drivers tested positive for illicit drugs.

"This is not about delaying or victimising or persecuting anybody at all," Endycott says, adding that good operators have nothing to fear as they aren’t doing anything wrong.

He believes the tampering of speed-limiters was of a class that was beyond the average driver to fashion.

Operation Octagon was carried out over 48 hours from May 23.

"The operation focused on heavy vehicle operators across the state whose vehicles were detected speeding by police," RMS says.

"Inspections of heavy vehicles were carried out at Marulan and Mt White checking station, Wetherill Park heavy vehicle inspection station and on the Newell Highway.

"The operation looked at companies of interest whose heavy vehicles had been detected speeding by police, in some cases in excess of 120km/h.

"Other heavy vehicles were also examined during the operation to ensure they were speed limiter compliant."